Equivalent Exchange
by Nicholas de Vilance
Summary: /The Insatiable/\oneshot\ For ever action there is a reaction. Thus, if you cage up a vampire, she'll be pissed when she gets out...Even if you haven't seen the movie, please just read it and review it!


Nicholas: I saw this movie on the internet, and of course, I watched it because it has Sean Patrick Flanery in it. Can't say much for the film, except that I like the romantic plot. I don't like the effects gags and I don't like the end (so of course I write my own end!). The plot and what not of the film were standard, and it's worth it to see if just for the weird romance. Don't pay $10 for the movie. It's on the internet if you want to see it. The rabbit, by the way, makes me think of Mr. Bunny-kinns from my Boondock Saints fics...giggles

Disclaimer: I don't own "The Insatiable" nor would I really want to claim ownership. I'd be slightly ashamed.

Rating: M for language, slightly torturous violence and some dark, suggestive themes.

Note: Djadadjii means vampire hunter according to the film.

* * *

"Tonight, I'm the rabbit."

Willing. He was just so willing to die that Tatiana could already taste him. His flesh, his blood. "No." She didn't want that. She didn't want him. Not Harry. If she were mortal and could still love him the way she once could have, she would without thinking twice. Then again, if she were mortal, she probably wouldn't have met him. "I don't want to…"

"I've killed two people." Harry was pleading in his own way. "I can't live with that."

"You didn't kill them, I did."

"I might as well have!" She noticed the tendons in his neck grow taut as he shouted. "That first guy, sure that was an accident, but did I call the police? I should have killed you then. I should have killed you that day I saw you sleeping!" He clutched the key ring in his hands until his knuckles turned white. "I didn't…and Javi, I just let him in. I fed him to you…it's the same as what you did…except I had a choice." He was crying, though trying to hold it back. "Please, just…drain me, go ahead. When the police get here, I'll be on the floor…I'll just be another of your victims. Maybe even your last." He smiled ironically. "That's got to be something special."

"No." Tatiana wouldn't let him do this. He was slowly inching closer to the cage, and she didn't want to lose control. Oh, but she was hungry…so hungry. Harry had starved her, it was his fault! …For having a conscience? No, that came with being mortal. "I don't want to kill you, Harry."

Did she actually mean that? She couldn't possibly mean it. She was just a vampire and Harry just a human—i.e. her next meal by nature. "You said you couldn't love me…but you still sound like you care." He was so close to the bars now that Tatiana could probably just reach out and grab him. "I thought you were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. That's why I couldn't kill you. I couldn't believe how something so lovely could be evil."

"No, Harry, don't—"

"I wanted to change you…save you because I thought I could. I thought I could show you what you used to be and make you that again." His hand reached up and gripped the bar. "I know now that I can't…you're a monster." It took everything she had to step back from the bars. She had to get away from her suicidal mortal. "You've made me a monster, but I can't do this anymore…Please." The moment he touched her hand, she could feel his pulse, his warmth, and she wanted it desperately.

"No!" Her voice was a whisper. He just pulled her closer. "Harry, I don't want to kill you! Don't do it!" She also was willing. Too willing to fight back. The closer she got to him, the more his scent filled her mind. It was enough to drive her mad. She reached through the bars and pulled his head closer, her mind slowly going blank. She could almost taste him. She licked his neck and felt his heartbeat on her tongue. "I won't…"

Harry felt a tingling sensation shoot up the side of his neck and buzz around his head for a few seconds. He wanted to pretend that she was just his girlfriend and this was some weird game they played. "I should have known," he mused quietly, "guys like me don't get girls like you."

Tatiana's heart—or whatever heart she had—wrenched viciously in her chest. She gripped the hair on the back of Harry's head tightly and held back her tears. She was losing control quickly, but the last rationality in her mind was that she had to get out of that cage before she killed him. With that thought in mind, she let one of her hands grope along his body, searching for the key she knew he was carrying. She lost her mind just as her finger wrapped around the key ring. "I'm not going to kill you."

Harry looked up at her with a pained look. "Why?"

Tatiana pushed her fist through the bars quickly and with enough strength that the blow to Harry's stomach knocked him backwards to the ground. While he tried to recover from that, she fumbled around for the lock and successfully found and opened it. In seconds, she was on top of Harry, pushing him flat to the concrete. "You didn't let me finish…I'm not going to kill you _yet_." All the softness in her voice was gone and all of her superhuman strength was put to use in holding Harry down. She reached her head down and nipped his neck, just enough to draw a thin stream of blood.

The pain made Harry come to a realization of what had happened. She was loose. He tried to gather his thoughts to speak, but sting of her lapping at his blood was distraction enough. He couldn't move his arms. "You said you'd go far away."

"That was if you let me out…I had to let myself out. All deals are off,_Djadadjii_." She stared in his eyes for a long moment before she brushed her lips on his. As soon as his eyes closed for a split second, she blew a steady wind of breath in his face. It smelled strangely sweet, as opposed to the smell of death that clung to the room. He unconsciously breathed in and was then in a deeper sleep than natural.

* * *

It was like having a hangover, when Harry woke up. It was the worst hangover the novice drinker ever had and probably would ever have. He shook his head a few times to try and shake it, but it persisted. "Shit," he muttered through his hoarse throat. There should have been a sign where his mind used to be saying "out for a swim." He tried to reach up and hold his pounding head, but his hands were stuck behind him. Handcuffs.

"Good evening, Sleeping Fuckhead." Tatiana was some where in the incomprehensible darkness beyond the chair Harry was sitting on. She brushed a hand along his jaw line. "Are you in pain yet?"

Harry couldn't see her, but he knew she could see him. He moved his head away from her hand and closed his eyes. "Why won't you just kill me?" He was angry, angrier than Harry Balbo had ever let on to being. When he felt her fingers press against the sore spot on his neck, he tried not to make a sound. It still hurt like hell.

"You took away my hunt, _Djadadjii_. I starved for too long because of you, and so I'm not giving you requests." She undid the top button of his shirt and moved his collar away from his neck to completely uncover it. "Besides, you taste too good to waste." Her hands were so cold…unbelievably cold. "You tortured me, don't you think it's fair? Ever heard of equivalent exchange?"

Harry tried to shake his head, but her long fingers held his jaw still. A plea escaped his lips before he could think about it. "Please don't…"

Tatiana laughed quietly. "Wasn't it just an hour ago that you were begging me to kill you?" She leaned against him, her nose calmly taking in the scent at the crook of his neck. "Why the sudden change of heart? Why are you begging for your life?"

"Not mine…everybody else's."

She looked at him incredulously for a long while. How could one human be so…self-sacrificing? What did he care what happened to the rest of the world? He was going to die anyway. "How is it that you don't save your own ass like everyone else in the world? The people I kill are just people…they are going to die anyway!"

"They aren't dead yet!" He some how managed to raise his voice. "The people you kill have a chance to live life to it's fullest. Even Sammy, that bum whose head you tore off. You don't have a right to take it away!"

In a sudden fury, she yanked him up by the shirt, ripping off quite a few buttons as she forced him to stand. She pushed him face first against a wall, knocking the chair over. "I don't have a right? What about when they took it from me? They turned me when I could have been happy, and I have to live with it for all of eternity. I think I have the fucking right to keep myself alive, Harry!" For a moment she faltered. She heard him whimper, ever so quietly, and she realized that he was human and he was very much afraid of her.

He didn't whine and beg like most mortals do when they know they are about to die. He just cried, albeit near silently, but he did cry. "I'm sorry," he said at length.

Tatiana traced a finger along the collar of his shirt and took a deep breath to calm herself. "It's a Spartan life, the Darkness. The blood that feeds me doesn't last long at all, just as the warmth of touch"—she pulled his shirt all the way open and slid it down his shoulders—"is as fleeting as the hummingbird's flight." Pressing her cheek against his bare skin, she could hear, feel and smell the blood rushing faster and faster within him. "The few luxuries I have are short-lived at most."

"Good things don't last forever," Harry muttered quietly, his breath catching slightly when he felt her fangs brush his shoulder blade. His shirt had bunched up where the handcuffs held his wrists together.

"Yes, which makes it all the more painful that I do." She ran her tongue over his skin, just behind his ear and he sighed quietly. "We used to call it a kiss…my kind, I mean. It was an honor to receive it. Now you humans just don't deserve to enjoy it." He clenched his eyes shut when he felt her teeth on the tender area at the back of his neck. "I forgot how to make it less painful…my victims rarely deserved it." Without any more hesitation, she pressed her razor-sharp fangs into his skin.

Painful isn't a word to describe it. Excruciatingly agonizing is a bit closer. Harry wanted to scream as though it would ease the hurt, but he had no voice. The sound of his own heartbeat pounded in his ears as his blood slowly but surely flowed from the wound in his neck. Behind his eyelids, he could almost see the rushing red liquid leave him. The noise that would have been a tortured cry squeaked out of his throat like a labored moan, as the pain suddenly ebbed to a stinging burn that was altogether more bearable.

Both would have preferred it to have lasted longer—he still wanted to die, and she loved the taste of him—but Tatiana used every ounce of self-control that remained in her body to pull away before he lost too much blood. She let Harry crumble to his knees and then fall sideways onto the floor before she tore apart his shirt to use to stop the bleeding. Waste not, want not.

* * *

Harry woke up at probably noon the next day, his vision a complete blur and his whole body aching harshly. His limbs pulsed painfully for a few long moments after he regained consciousness. As he looked around, he could see that he was in his apartment's living room, but there was a blanket over the window, keeping most of the light out. There was a dull, annoying burning sensation in his neck and he knew all too well what it was from. He wondered what God it was that put him into this situation. Was she sleeping in his bed? Interesting train of thought.

Tatiana woke up relatively early at five in the evening. She uncurled herself from the fetal position and stretched in a cat-like way and threw herself off of Harry's bed. With a sickening crack of her back, she left the room, wearing only the bra and panties she'd slept in. She almost tripped over Harry on her way into the living room. He'd managed crawl to the hallway without the use of his hands. "How long did it take you to get from the living room to over here?"

"About…five hours," he muttered, being that he was too out of it to think of some way to regain his dignity. "Aren't you up a bit early?"

She faked a pout and kneeled down beside him to stroke his hair. He was pale and she could tell he was tired. "Don't you want to see me? I like to see you." Slowly, but not quite gently, she pulled him up and dragged him over to his armchair. "You feel weak?" He nodded. "Helpless?" Affirmative. "You don't like it?" He shrugged awkwardly while his mind wandered. "I didn't like it. What you are feeling is almost the same thing you did to me. The only difference is that you don't have the constant bloodlust nagging at the back of your mind."

When he was seated properly, Harry felt nauseated suddenly. He bent over at his stomach and squeezed his eyes shut. "I'm sorry," he mumbled, his gag reflexes reeking havoc on his throat. "I didn't know…but I still don't regret it."

Tatiana just nodded with an ironic smile. "Of course you don't,_Djadadjii_, you just wanted to do what was right. You always have perfect intentions, don't you?" Her fingers tangled absently through his hair. "Intentions don't make actions. If you had realized that, you may not have screwed up so much in life."

"Shut up." There was not force in his tone. He felt her push him slightly and that's all it took make him dizzy. He sat back in the chair and tried to suppress his growing need to vomit.

"I need to feed." There was a smile on her face. "I could finish you off and probably be able to settle with that for tonight…" She was teasing him. Dangling a treat in front of his face that he could get to if she'd just stop moving it. "I'm not sure I want to, though…I've never had a pet before, and you're kind of fun."

"You bitch."

With a laugh, she pushed him playfully until he finally just tumbled out of his seat, landing awkwardly on his back. "I may be a bitch, but at least I'm not handcuffed on the floor of my own living room." She crawled on top of him and undid the bandage around his neck that had once been an article of clothing. "You didn't like the pain, did you? Couldn't stand it until I made it better."

He thought she was going to bite him again, so he went rigid. She didn't though. She just traced the rough scar with her fingers, irritating the sore spot. "What do you want me to do?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Why are you fucking around? You can just kill me. Right now, I'm helpless so even if I had second thoughts, you could do it either way. What, do you want me to ask? Beg? Some stupid shit like that?" He looked at her, right in her eyes. "You don't want to kill me because I want you to, is that it?" If that were the case, Harry might just try and kill himself.

"I like you like this." Tatiana's smile had disappeared. "I like you being Harry, just the way I know him. Shy, scared, pissed off at the people who poke fun at him"—namely Javi—"so I don't want you to be just another one of those good things that doesn't last. It may be torture, but you once asked if you could feed me. You were willing to try, remember?" She could see that he remembered by the look in his eyes. "You're so naïve some times, and it gets infuriating. This is what it is like to be my human lover. I want you forever and you don't want anything to do with me." Strangely, as she started to say what was on her mind, she felt horrible. "Do you still want to die?"

Harry didn't want to hear what she was saying. She was contradicting herself. She said she couldn't love him like the living needed to be loved. Well fuck that! She already managed to make him love her. His mind filled with images of her victims. He thought he might actually vomit. "Are you willing to kill me? I don't want anyone else to."

"That was sadistically romantic, Harry." Tatiana used one of her long nails and picked idly at his scab, knowing it hurt like a motherfucker. It took a few moments for her to decide, but she eventually got an idea. A trickle of blood seeped up through the scab and she instinctively licked it away. In seconds she felt his pulse in her mouth once more and she held him still as he tried to wriggle in pain.

It was a naturally human reaction to struggle when threatened, but Harry was determined not to. No matter how much it hurt and no matter how frightening it was, he tried to resign himself. She didn't make it easier this time. Pain flared from every part of his body, starting with his arms and then moving all the way to his toes. There was a ringing sound in his ears and he was strangely aware of his mind shutting down. He was suffocating. He was slipping off into the darkness like the feeling you get when you don't want to go back to sleep after having a nightmare. It was terrifying, but he wasn't thinking about that. He was thinking about how Tatiana had said she wanted him forever. Who was the last person to admit she wanted him—_Harry Balbo_ of the funny last name? He felt himself slip, but he suddenly didn't want to leave her.

She pulled away with tears in her eyes. He should have been dead by now, but he wasn't. Why wasn't he dead? "You don't want to die," she stated, relatively certain that he couldn't hear her. "You did, but now you don't." What should she do? What _could_ she do? There was no way to save a human at this point. She was going to just stand up and leave him, so that when the police finally did find him, he'd be dead and she wouldn't have to worry. She couldn't bring herself to do it. "I can have you forever? Can I,_Djadadjii_?" Why was she asking him? He couldn't hear, nor could he respond.

Harry's senses were numb. He couldn't really see very well, and he couldn't really hear very well, but he could feel. He felt someone touching him…touching his face. Something wet, and something dry. Something opened his limp jaw and he tasted something on his tongue. It burned his throat like whiskey, but it tasted sweet like candy. The pain in his body that had dulled as his mind died returned quickly.

Tatiana cradled his head in her arm tenderly as she held her bleeding wrist to his mouth. She had no idea of knowing it this would work. She'd never done it before—never had a reason to. When she heard Harry groan quietly, she let out a breath she hadn't meant to hold in. He was alive. Well…sort of…

* * *

Cindy had been waiting a half a year for Harry to finally take her up on her offer to make him dinner. Sure, that night he'd kissed her had been a little weird, but she came to the conclusion that he'd been drunk. She was in the middle of hanging a picture when she heard a knock on her door. People always managed to do that when she was in the middle of something. She jumped from the chair she was standing on and stumbled over to the door. At first she didn't recognize the man in the leather jacket who stood as cool as ice just outside her door. "Harry?" Since when was Harry…sexy? Maybe it was that his hair was more relaxed and messy than strictly combed down as it used to be. Maybe it was that his face had a confident expression instead of the usual shy one. Maybe it was the rose he was holding out to her. "What a surprise!" No shit, Sherlocke.

"You ready to feed me?" He was smiling widely as she took his gift.

"Now?"

"I finally freed up some time, so I hope now isn't bad for you." No childish tenderness, no weak "I don't really want to be here" hint. Was this really Harry? "I'm hungry."

"Well…okay, sure." She opened the door wider. "Come on in."

Tatiana watched as Harry entered the apartment. She was quite proud of her new vampire. He was deceptive without being sneaky. She liked it a lot. Just as the door was about to close, Tatiana caught a glimpse of Harry pinning his victim to a wall. She didn't even fight. Tatiana had to go in and watch.


End file.
